It’s been nearly 40 years since Pixar got going in the, yes, garage of one of its founders, and in that time it’s gone from being cult item to monster indie to part of the Disney mega-stable. Inside Out 2 comes at an interesting point in its history. Pixar is now part of the cultural furniture and at this point in its development is well used, to mix metaphors, to having its lunch stolen by younger, nimbler rivals. Gone also are the years when every new release was a banger – Toy Story followed by A Bug’s Life, followed by Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and The Incredibles is a good run by anyone’s reckoning.
Do recent offerings Onward, Soul, Luca, Turning Red, Lightyear and Elemental compare? Not even in name recognisability. So you cannot blame Pixar for going back to a certified winner to relight the fire after a few leanish years (not helped by Disney releasing Pixar’s films straight to the little screen during the Covid hiatus).
Inside Out 2 is brilliant if you haven’t seen the original film. And it’s still good even if you have. It tells the same story, of a little girl inside whose head the emotions are at war with each other, each trying to take control – Joy, Disgust, Fear, Anger and Sadness all learning a teachable point, as do we, that little Riley works best when all the constituent elements pull together. Even negative emotions have their place and a positive one in the wrong place can be positively dangerous.
That was Inside Out 1, and for a while it looks like it’s going to be Inside Out 2 as well. Except this time sweet, young Riley is 13 years old going through puberty. As well as suddenly not being able to get into a favourite sweater, inside Riley’s head new emotions are suddenly showing up to displace the original, childish ones.
In what is essentially a palace coup, Joy, Disgust et al are banished to the farthest corner of Riley’s psyche and Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui take over the running of the ship. Unbowed, the deposed emotions set off on a quest to the Back of the Mind on the Stream of Consciousness, trying to find Riley’s old Sense of Self to regain their place at the helm. More lessons to be learned: change is gonna come.
Meanwhile, in the outside world Riley has gone away for a few days to a hockey camp, where thanks to the new emotions steering her, she has soon disowned her old besties and is trying hard to pal up to older, cooler hockey whizz Valentina and gang.
Anxiety is what’s driving Riley now, much as Joy used to be her lead emotion. Good voice work here by Maya Hawke as Anxiety, and Amy Poehler, returning as Joy. The voice work is uniformly good, though a big shout to Adèle Exarchopoulos, who voices Ennui, amplifying her own Frenchness to comically existential proportions. Not many lines but every one funny.
The writing is as smart as Pixar at its best, with funny sideshows to accompany the main event – a gamer character called Lance Slashblade who is accompanied by a Deep Dark Secret. Or Bloofy, a refugee from children’s TV who always addresses the camera, over-modulates his voice and makes every statement into a question, doesn’t he, children?
The bits set on the outside at the hockey camp are dull, and these bits of the film are to be endured rather than enjoyed. Maybe you have to be a teenager. Inside her head is where the action is, and the animation is Candy Crush bright, madly busy and a touch frantic. When Anxiety eventually drives Riley into a full-blown panic attack it’s easy to sympathise.
Love yourself. Don’t be too tough on yourself. For good or ill, you are all you have. These are the takeaways. Cognitive behavioural therapy, isn’t it? Inside Out 2, like its predecessor, wears its psychoanalytic underpinnings incredibly lightly.
Inside Out 2 – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
I am an Amazon affiliate
© Steve Morrissey 2025
